Me culpa, guilty as charged.

It would be an overstatement to say that Tivo "changed my life" -- my life didn't revolve around TV before, and still doesn't -- But it has radically changed my viewing habits. I had basically given up on following any series regularly, partly because I resented having my arrange my schedule around the TV, or go to the trouble of programming a conventional VCR (see that "L" word at the top of the page?), and partly because my tolerance for commercials has gotten lower and lower as grown older and more crotchety. With the Tivo, I can tolerate commercial TV again, and have taken to following several series.

I'm not sure yet whether that's a good thing or not. I'd really hate to give up South Park, Futurama, Stargate SG-1, and a handful of others. But the idiot box is still the idiot box, even smartened up by Tivo; it's still a centralized mass medium. As Lileks said of newspapers, it's a lecture rather than a conversation. Even the best of programming doesn't call on your creativity or interpersonal skills.

If I had to choose between giving up Tivo and giving up the web, the Tivo would be gone in a heartbeat. Not even close. The Tivo is entertainment (as Den Beste recently pointed out, even the news is really entertainment); the Web is entertainment, and real news, and a reference library, and a shopping mall, and a soapbox. The web is more versatile, and one can participate rather than just passively consuming.

The web really has changed my life. Tivo just changed my leisure time.